And, finally, I got to deliver my traditional coup de grace, namely, handing the flack a glass tumbler full of the awful black stuff and inviting him to drink it.
Sometimes I feel sorry for flacks. They don't have a clue about chemistry or ecology or any of the technical issues. They just have an official line they're told to repeat. My job is to get them fired. The first few times I did this, I felt great, like an avenging angel. Now I try to co-opt them. I go easy. I don't blow their brains out on-camera unless they get sleazy, attacking me or GEE. I've been responsible for a lot of people getting fired - security guards, PR flacks, engineers - and that's the most troublesome part of my job.
Zodiac
11
THE COPS SHOWED UP. All kinds of cops. Blue Kills cops, state police, coast guardsmen. It didn't much matter because we'd already plugged ninety-five of the holes.
All the cops stood in knots on the beach and argued about jurisdiction. What they came up with was this: several state troopers and Blue Kills policemen took a coast guard boat out to the Blowfish - which a trooper boarded, just to show the flag - and then their boat escorted us way around to the north and into a dock that was part of Blue Kills proper, not Blue Kills Beach.
It was a fun trip. The wind had come up and the Blue Kills cops, on that dinky CG boat, spent most of it doubled over the side, chucking their donuts. On the Blowfish, I chatted with Dick, the state trooper, a pretty affable guy of about forty. He asked me a lot of questions about the plant and why it was dangerous and I tried to explain.
“Cancer happens when cells go crazy and don't stop multiplying. That happens, basically, because their genetic code has gotten screwed up.”
“Like nicotine or asbestos or something.”
I glanced up and saw Tom Akers sidling over in our direction, listening to the conversation.
“Yeah. Nicotine and asbestos have some way of altering your genes. Genes are just long stringy molecules. Like any other molecule, they can have chemical reactions with other molecules. If the other molecule happens to be, say, nicotine, the reaction will break or damage the gene. Most of the time it won't matter. But if you're unlucky, the gene will be changed in just the wrong way....” “And you get the Big C.”
“Right.” I couldn't help thinking of Dolmacher - the world's biggest carcinogen - cracking genes up there in Boston. “The thing is, Dick, that for a chemist it's pretty obvious, just looking at any molecule, whether it's going to cause cancer or not. There are certain elements, like chlorine, that are very good at breaking apart your genes. So if you're dumping something into the environment that has a lot of available chlorine on it, you have to be a jerk not to realize it's cancer-causing.”
“But you can never prove it,” Tom said, sounding kind of sullen.
“You can never prove it the way you can prove a case in court. That's why the chemical corporations can get away with so much. Someone gets a tumor, it's impossible to trace it back to a particular chlorine atom that came from a molecule that was discharged by such-and-such a plant. It's all circumstantial, statistical evidence.”
Dick said, “So this stuff coming out of this pipe down here-”
“Some of it has chlorine on it. Also there are some heavy metals coming out, like cadmium, mercury, and so on. Everyone knows they're toxic.”
“So why does the EPA allow these guys to do it?”
“To dump that stuff? They don't.”
“What do you mean?”
“The EPA doesn't allow it. It's against the law.”
“Wait a minute,” Dick said. I could see the methodical cop mind at work; I could see him writing up an arrest report. “Let's take this from the top. What these guys are doing is against the law.”
“Exactly.”
“So how come we're arresting you?”
“Because that's the way of the world, Dick.”
“Well, you know, a lot of people around here . . .” he leaned forward, though nobody was even close to us “... are on your side. They really like what you're doing. Everyone's known that these guys were dumping poison. And people are sick of it.” He leaned even closer. “Like my daughter for example. My seventeen-year-old daughter. Hey! That reminds me! You got any stuff on this boat?”
“What do you mean?” I thought he was talking about drugs.
“Oh, you know, bumper stickers, posters. I'm supposed to get some for my daughter, Sheri.”
I took him down below and we redecorated Sheri's room with big posters of adorable mammals.
“How about stuffed animals? You got any stuffed animals?” Then his eyes went wide and he glanced away. “Sorry. I didn't mean that as a joke.”
For a second I didn't catch the reference. Then I figured that he was talking about an incident a couple of weeks before when a van of ours, completely jammed with stuffed penguins, had caught fire on the Garden State Parkway. Our people got out, but the van burned like a flare for three hours. Plastic is essentially frozen gasoline.
“Yeah, we're a little short.”
I got some coffee for Dick and we hung out in the cockpit watching Blue Kills approach, watching the cops on the CG boat do the technicolor yawn. “How long you staying in Jersey?” he asked.
“Couple days.”
“You know, Sheri just thinks you guys are great. She'd love to meet you. Maybe you could come by for dinner.” We fenced over that issue for a while - God help me, getting involved with an underage Jersey state trooper's daughter - and then Dick and his friends busted us and took us to jail.
We were each allowed one phone call. I used mine to order a pizza. We'd already notified the national office of GEE, down in Washington, and they had dispatched Abigail, the attack lawyer. She was on her way now, probably in a helicopter gunship.